Catherine C. McGeoch

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Experimental and Efficient Algorithms, WEA 2008, held in Provincetown, MA, USA, in May/June 2008. The 26 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions and present current research on experimental evaluation and engineering of algorithms, as well as in various aspects of computational optimization and its applications. Special focus is put on the use of experimental methods to guide the design, analysis, implementation, and evaluation of algorithms, heuristics, and optimization programs.

7th International Workshop, WEA 2008 Provincetown, MA, USA, May 30 - June 1, 2008 Proceedings

Experimental Algorithms

Michael T. Goodrich

Symmetric multiprocessors (SMPs) dominate the high-end server market and are currently the primary candidate for constructing large scale multiprocessor systems. Yet, the design of e cient parallel algorithms for this platform c- rently poses several challenges. The reason for this is that the rapid progress in microprocessor speed has left main memory access as the primary limitation to SMP performance. Since memory is the bottleneck, simply increasing the n- ber of processors will not necessarily yield better performance. Indeed, memory bus limitations typically limit the size of SMPs to 16 processors. This has at least twoimplicationsfor the algorithmdesigner. First, since there are relatively few processors availableon an SMP, any parallel algorithm must be competitive with its sequential counterpart with as little as one processor in order to be r- evant. Second, for the parallel algorithm to scale with the number of processors, it must be designed with careful attention to minimizing the number and type of main memory accesses. In this paper, we present a computational model for designing e cient al- rithms for symmetric multiprocessors. We then use this model to create e cient solutions to two widely di erent types of problems - linked list pre x com- tations and generalized sorting. Both problems are memory intensive, but in die rent ways. Whereas generalized sorting algorithms typically require a large numberofmemoryaccesses, they areusuallytocontiguousmemorylocations. By contrast, prex computation algorithms typically require a more modest qu- tity of memory accesses, but they are are usually to non-contiguous memory locations.

International Workshop ALENEX'99 Baltimore, MD, USA, January 15-16, 1999, Selected Papers

Algorithm Engineering and Experimentation

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the International Workshop on Algorithmic Engineering and Experimentation, ALENEX'99, held in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, in January 1999. The 20 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from a total of 42 submissions during two rounds of reviewing and improvement. The papers are organized in sections on combinatorial algorithms, computational geometry, software and applications, algorithms for NP-hard problems, and data structures.

David S. Johnson

Interest has grown recently in the application of computational and statistical tools to problems in the analysis of algorithms. In many algorithmic domains, worst-case bounds are too pessimistic and tractable probabilistic models too unrealistic to provide meaningful predictions of practical algorithmic performance. Experimental approaches can provide knowledge where purely analytical methods fail and can provide insights to motivate and guide deeper analytical results. The DIMACS Implementation Challenge was organized to encourage experimental work in the area of network flows and matchings. Participants at sites in the U.S., Europe, and Japan undertook projects between November 1990 and August 1991 to test and evaluate algorithms for these problems. The Challenge culminated in a three-day workshop, held in October 1991 at DIMACS. This volume contains the revised and refereed versions of twenty-two of the papers presented at the workshop, along with supplemental material about the Challenge and the Workshop.

Catherine C. McGeoch

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